Dr Tracy Jeffery

Dr Tracy Jeffery teaches on the BA in Special Educational Needs and Inclusion programme. She joined Bishop Grosseteste University as a Visiting Tutor in 2010, teaching on Education Studies, SENI and Psychology programmes, and joined as a full time lecturer in SENI in 2016. Prior to this, she taught adults and young people with special needs at an FE College, and worked as a music facilitator in mainstream and SEN schools. Her background is in language and communication impairment and she has specialised in the use of music and singing activities in developing speech, language and communication. Tracy is interested in creative educational approaches that support personal development, specifically for people with SEND. She has a particular interest in the application of music and the arts to support wellbeing, and in the use of music to support wider aspects of learning and development. She is a keen advocate of Kodaly and Dalcroze teaching methods.

Tracy’s research interests centre on atypical speech and voice production, psycholinguistics, and on the use of music and the arts in supporting wellbeing. Her PhD research focussed on the potential for music activities to support perception and production of speech for people with Down Syndrome. Previous research investigated the potential of singing as a tool for developing speech intelligibility (MSc LACIC). As researcher, she has contributed to the BGU Evaluation Report for nasen’s ‘A Whole School Approach to Improving Access, Participation and Achievement’ (2012 and 2013). As lead researcher, she designed and conducted the ‘SongVoice’ research project for Soundlincs and ELDC (2012-2014), which investigated the effects of song-based musical activities on communication in school aged children with moderate-severe Learning Disabilities. She has presented papers at the Down Syndrome Research Forum (2010; 2017).

Stuttering in Down Syndrome: a case study. Down Syndrome Research Forum, 2017

Jeffery, T., Cunningham, S., & Whiteside, S. P. (2017). Analyses of Sustained Vowels in Down Syndrome (DS): A Case Study Using Spectrograms and Perturbation Data to Investigate Voice Quality in Four Adults With DS. Journal of Voice.

Jeffery, T. (2016). Speaking in harmony: an exploration of the potential for rhythm and song to support speech production in four young adults with Down Syndrome. PhD thesis, University of Sheffield.

Jeffery,T. and Whiteside, D. (Eds). (2016). Education Undergraduate : journal of undergraduate research in education. Volume 8: November 2016

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